Senate Elections are Going to Be A Thing
Alberta has re-instated Senate nominee elections as of July 2019, to allow Albertans to vote for a senator (rather than elect one—read on) in this year’s municipal election.
But what’s the Senate? Many Canadians don’t know a lot about it. The Senate is the upper house of Canada’s Parliament. There are 105 members appointed by the prime minister to their Senate seats. They are not elected. They can hold the position until age 75. The Senate’s purpose is to consider and revise legislation; research and investigate issues, and give the regions of Canada a more equal voice in Parliament … well, that is the idea anyway.
Here’s how the seats break down regionally:
Maritimes: 24 seats (10 each for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and four for PEI).
Quebec: 24 seats
Ontario: 24 seats
Western Canada: 24 seats (six each for Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan)
Quelle surprise some regions aren’t happy, or that the idea of the triple-E senate (elected, equal, effective) is a cornerstone of western populist thought.
Since senators are appointed to the position, and not elected, an election is mostly political showboating rather than democracy. Even if you vote for a senator in Alberta, there’s no guarantee they’ll make it into the Senate. And if they do, they then stay in the Senate until they age out, quit, or … die.
A United Conservative Party fundraising email on June 15 nonetheless announces the Senate election (to be held along with the municipal election, and the referendum … and who knows what else might come) as a triumph of democracy:
The fact is, Alberta has a proud democratic record when it comes to the Senate. Five times, democratically-elected senators from Alberta have been appointed to the senate. We have held Senate nominee elections four times in our history. It's time for this tradition to continue.
By this, they mean that since 1989, 10 nominees have been “elected” and there have been five senators who were appointed to the senate after a non-binding election. One after the 1989 election, two after a 2004 election and two after a 2012 election.
The UCP also took the opportunity to lecture Prime Minister Justin Trudeau via Motion 85, which urges Trudeau to refrain from filling Alberta’s two vacant Senate seats until Albertans can elect nominees in the fall:
Hey historically there’s a 50 per cent chance it will work, right?
Well not necessarily. After Trudeau’s election in 2016, he created an Independent Advisory Board for the Senate and more than 2,700 Canadians applied to become a senator.
That’s how we got Sen. Paula Simons.
Equity Zones
Elise Stolte of the Edmonton Journal kicks off a discussion about the equity of Edmonton’s mature neighbourhood overlay, a bit of zoning that prevents older neighbourhoods from changing all that much.
“Edmonton’s type of prescriptive zoning — spelling out exactly what construction and activity is allowed on a property — has a long history of racial segregation, emerging first in the American town of Euclid in 1916 as a way to keep Black people out of more prosperous white areas,” writes Stolte.
Is it time to change the rules?
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Summer is here
O’ day-min candidate Anne Stevenson takes a break in the mountains to recharge. This isn’t an endorsement, I just liked the photos! We hope your weekend is as wonderful.
Did you know?
‘O-day’min’ is Anishinaabe for strawberry.
Elders told stories of vulnerability using O-day’min, or strawberry, as the seeds were on the outside, rather than on the inside. It teaches about creation, community and love.
It’s also a ward name in Edmonton.
Find out more about new ward names by watching the great videos the City of Edmonton has released.